The streetlights were flickering.
Figured.
I'd been walking for an hour because the bus decided to give up three blocks short of my stop. Could've complained, but my bank account had already given me the middle finger twice this week. The city at midnight was less a metropolis and more a graveyard with good lighting. Neon reflected in rain puddles that smelled like stale piss and forgotten dreams. Everything looked alive but felt dead—which, honestly, summed up my last five years pretty accurately.
I took a shortcut because my feet hurt and I'd stopped caring about urban safety tips around the same time I stopped believing in happy endings. Fate, of course, has a special hatred for people who cut corners.
The screaming started before I even turned the alley.
Not the I-was-mugged kind of scream. This was the something-is-eating-my-soul kind. People poured out of the far end of the street like roaches from a lifted rock. One tripped, face-planted into a dumpster, scrambled up, and kept running without even wiping the blood off his chin. Impressive dedication, really.
I could've run. My legs still worked, technically. But my brain offered a helpful reminder: Run to what?
A studio apartment that smelled like regret and instant noodles? A job that paid me in existential dread? A life so bland that my biggest achievement this month was remembering to buy toilet paper?
Yeah. Hard pass.
So I stopped. Lit a cigarette instead. The flame trembled in the cool air, and I took a long, slow drag. If the world was going to end tonight, at least I'd go out with nicotine in my lungs.
The screaming stopped. The silence that followed was thicker, heavier, like the air itself was holding its breath.
Curiosity's a bitch. It's what makes people poke dead things with sticks. It's what made me walk toward the quiet instead of away from it.
The street was a postcard from a bad day. Shattered glass, abandoned cars, dark streaks on the pavement that I politely decided were oil stains. A corner store's lights were still on, door hanging open like an invitation.
I went in. Sat on the counter. Finished my cigarette.
When it finally showed up, it didn't bother with stealth.
The thing looked almost human—tall, pale, wearing what might've been a suit in a previous life. Then I noticed the extra set of arms growing out of its shoulders like broken branches. Its eyes glowed a dull, angry red. Blood—dark, thick, wrong—seeped from a gash in its side.
An Eidolon. B-Rank, maybe. Hard to tell when you're trying to decide if you should be scared or just annoyed.
It stared at me. I stared back.
"Took you long enough," I said, my voice flat.
It hesitated. Probably confused. People usually run. Or pray. Or piss themselves. I'd already done all three this week, so I was fresh out of reactions.
It stepped closer. One of its extra hands shot out, wrapped around my throat, and lifted me like I was made of cardboard. Its mouth opened too wide, too many teeth, and I felt it—the pull.
Not pain. Emptiness. Like someone was unraveling me from the inside out, pulling the thread of whatever made me me and just… spooling it away. My vision greyed at the edges.
So this is how it ends, I thought. Not with a bang. With a sip.
Then it stopped.
The Eidolon shuddered. Looked down at its own wound, bleeding darker now. It muttered something—a wet, guttural sound that might've been a curse in a language that wasn't meant for human throats.
Its eyes locked on mine. Not hungry anymore. Calculating.
Great, I thought. Even the monster's having second thoughts.
Then everything went quiet. Not silent—empty. Like the sound had been sucked out of the world. My body went numb. The streetlights seemed to stretch, then snap.
The last thing I remember was the Eidolon's face, bleeding light and shadow, leaning in too close.
And a thought, dry and distant in the back of my crumbling mind:
Well. This is new.